Exploring Concepts from Soft Robotics — Professor Kari Love

Mylar Inflatable

For this experiment, I was trying to make a nice spiral form. In a video Kari showed in class, I was struck by the extensive movement that occurred when this shape was inflated. For inflatables, I am most interested in the way the forms change over time.

The video that inspired me: @xyzaidan on Instagram.

I attempted at first to use the laser cutter to get my mylar tacked together. I was unable to get this to work. There was too much trouble with the flow of air across the laser bed — the two layers would separate and the laser was not binding them.

So instead of drawing my spiral in Illustrator, I got a dry erase marker and drew it on the mylar directly. Next, I tacked the corners with the hot iron and tacked the entrance to the balloon as well. As I cut the shape out, I continued to seal up the spiral with plenty of area binding the two sides together.

I talked a little about this process with Chico MacMurtrie. He asked what the process was like — high heat low pressure, or low pressure high heat? I said we had little irons and just melted the PET layers on the mylar. "Ahh," he said, "low pressure low heat."

Anyway, here is a video of me blowing up my spiral.